Graduate school questions

[ryanfx]

Hey guys -

I had a couple questions regarding graduate school, hopefully some of you might be able to give me some insight. Some grad schools I was looking into are VERY expensive (Carnegie Mellon) and are downright unaffordable unless I got 100% or near that of financial aid. Do graduate schools generally offer assistanceships like TAing or fellowships for people going for their masters that cover the complete cost of tuition? Any other ways of getting to go to grad school for free (besides the obvious applying for scholarships).

[qwikz28]

have you considered a loan?

[lt14mla]

if you work for a good corporate company they might have a programs that will pay for your tuition while you work for them. Its alot of work tho, full time work, and pursuing a masters. Im right there with you. I work for Kraft Foods and am hoping they'll help me out, but if not I'll prolly be footing the bill, thus me selling my car. Where do you work? Any family or friends work for big companies?

[ryanfx]

Originally Posted by qwikz28

have you considered a loan?

I'm not taking out a 150,000 dollar loan for 2 years @ Carnegie

Originally Posted by lt14mla

if you work for a good corporate company they might have a programs that will pay for your tuition while you work for them. Its alot of work tho, full time work, and pursuing a masters. Im right there with you. I work for Kraft Foods and am hoping they'll help me out, but if not I'll prolly be footing the bill, thus me selling my car. Where do you work? Any family or friends work for big companies?

I have held a couple different Federal jobs dealing working with computer science.... no go on friends or family that work for big companies

[qwikz28]

Originally Posted by ryanfx

I'm not taking out a 150,000 dollar loan for 2 years @ Carnegie

holy cow i didn't know it was that much

[ryanfx]

Originally Posted by qwikz28

holy cow i didn't know it was that much

140,000... but after interest it will probably be closer to 200

[ShitOnWheels]

Some graduate schools may offer funding to MA students.

http://community.livejournal.com/applyingtograd/ is a community on LiveJournal for those applying to grad schools (particularly when the GRE is required as part of admission...there are other communities for MBA, Med School, and Law School applicants). You can find some great information over there about this specific topic, as well as others.

[SteveR]

A lot of jobs offer tuition reimbursement for grad school, so you'll go for free.

[ShitOnWheels]

Originally Posted by SteveR

A lot of jobs offer tuition reimbursement for grad school, so you'll go for free.

The only problem with this is a lot of jobs require the course work to be relevant to your current position (or a possible move up the chain), and may require you remain with the company for 1 - 3 years after completion of degree. So sure, you may be able to get free tuition from a company, but if you don't like the company after a year or 2, you may be stuck there anyway.

[Squirrel]

ry, if youre still working where you were before, why not ask your bosses' and so on if they were in the same situation?

[WildBillyT]

Originally Posted by ryanfx

Hey guys -

I had a couple questions regarding graduate school, hopefully some of you might be able to give me some insight. Some grad schools I was looking into are VERY expensive (Carnegie Mellon) and are downright unaffordable unless I got 100% or near that of financial aid. Do graduate schools generally offer assistanceships like TAing or fellowships for people going for their masters that cover the complete cost of tuition? Any other ways of getting to go to grad school for free (besides the obvious applying for scholarships).

Yes, they do.

I got my MS in CS from Villanova and they have two types of tuition reimbersments (this is an example, I don't know about CMU):

1.) Tuition Scholar, 20 hrs a week service for full tuition
2.) Graduate Assistant, 40 hrs a week service for full tuition and a stipend of around $1500 a month. You cannot hold another job while you do this or you will lose your ride.

You will be doing things like tutoring and grading if you are assigned to a professor. You may teach a few classes as well.

I did one semester as a TS and then got bumped up to a GA for the rest of it. You will have to have very good grades to get either of these- I graduated second in my class by 0.005 of a GPA point as an undergrad and I only got in as a TS first semester.

[ryanfx]

Originally Posted by Squirrel

ry, if youre still working where you were before, why not ask your bosses' and so on if they were in the same situation?

Where I work they offer tuition reimbursement programs however it would be preferable to just not have loans to be reimbursed at all. Looking at the quicker ways out before go down the let the job pay for it path.

[lt14mla]

Originally Posted by ****OnWheels

The only problem with this is a lot of jobs require the course work to be relevant to your current position (or a possible move up the chain), and may require you remain with the company for 1 - 3 years after completion of degree. So sure, you may be able to get free tuition from a company, but if you don't like the company after a year or 2, you may be stuck there anyway.

1-3 years? Most look to hold onto you for alot longer than that, and expect some moving up the chain. Alot more companies today won't even consider tuition reimbursement until your around a grade level 10, depending on company. This is also a way of helping companies cut back costs now at such times.

[Untamed]

Another way is to enter a school / cirriculum which is rare to the school but can help them raise money.

My sister got her PhD from Notre Dame, with a full ride plus monthly stipend and graduate housing (free) for going through their Bio-Chem PhD program. VERY few people in the nation do that, so Notre Dame wanted her to sign with them, do the work, and write grant requests for them. The work was long and hard but paid off.

You may find something similar, if you are looking for a graduate school for studies that are rare / uncommon.

[rbaksi]

I'm actually an undergraduate student at CMU and through scholarships and Aid I'm paying about 22K per year (instead of 47k). So I would say they're pretty generous when it comes to aid.

With our graduate school, which one were you looking at? Tepper? Engineering? My Teaching Assistants are all graduate students and I know they get paid a good amount to teach the classes. They're all working on masters and Ph'ds with professors.

Also call the HUB at Carnegie. They gave me an extra 5k per year once I negotiated with them, they can be pretty generous.

Plus CMU is a great school, even if im biased

[ryanfx]

Originally Posted by rbaksi

I'm actually an undergraduate student at CMU and through scholarships and Aid I'm paying about 22K per year (instead of 47k). So I would say they're pretty generous when it comes to aid.

With our graduate school, which one were you looking at? Tepper? Engineering? My Teaching Assistants are all graduate students and I know they get paid a good amount to teach the classes. They're all working on masters and Ph'ds with professors.

Also call the HUB at Carnegie. They gave me an extra 5k per year once I negotiated with them, they can be pretty generous.

Plus CMU is a great school, even if im biased

PM sent.

[Oddball]

So it's time I finally posted after getting the "Hello Oddball it appears that you have not posted on our forums in several weeks..." message.

I work for one of the larger employers in the Philly region. Their tuition reimbursement is both great and not-so-great. They will reimburse for any class in any program as long as the program is germane to anything they do, i.e. as an Engineer I could go to grad school for sports medicine or law or HR or whatever. Many companies have this policy. Other companies, it has to be relevant to your job which kind of sucks.

Many companies will not necessarily promote you when you get the degree, but when you show improvement in your performance because of hte knowledge learned.

The only bad part about my tuition plan was they paid up the IRS minimum threshold for it not be counted as income, about $5700 a year.

It was great for me. I went to Rowan Engineering at night while working during the day. Best thing for my career I ever did.